The Norquist Pledge and Losing the Future: An Open Letter to Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz

Dear Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz:
I am a Democrat, a strong supporter of President Obama, and a contributor to Democratic Party campaign finances, and to the President’s re-election. I am also dismayed by the lack of interest in, or the refusal of the Democratic Party, to make Grover Norquist and his Pledge that most Republicans in Congress have signed, a major issue in the up-coming Presidential election, and as part of the referendum on the Republican Party.
Norquist was interviewed on Sixty Minutes on November 20, 2011, reveling in the power he has against Republicans in Congress and against the Congress itself. He claimed that Republicans signing the Pledge did not endow him with personal power. The Pledge, he said to the moderator, Steve Kroft, reflected the power of the constituencies that vote Republicans into office and whom he more or less “represented.” Steve Kroft did not buy that explanation fully, and was able to get Norquist to reveal the power he has, not just with Republicans in the House and Senate, who have signed the Pledge, but also with the constituencies that voted for them in Congressional districts and at the state level for U.S. Senators.
Norquist said plainly that if a Republican signed the Pledge, his organization, Americans for Tax Reform, and other people, organizations, and financial resources he did not name, could be called upon by him and his organization to help that person get elected. If the Pledge was not signed, all of these elements would be mobilized to defeat a Republican seeking office. If a Republican signed the Pledge, and then reneged on it as a member of Congress, Norquist said forces would be mobilized that, among other things, would engage in a massive “educational campaign” against the Representative or Senator to defeat that person in the next election. This is the great fear that the Republicans in Congress have. They are able to see that it is not just Norquist that they are up against. He is the “point man” for the corporate elements that wield great power over the Republican Party. They fear the great wealth and power that such entities would use against them. This is the big picture that Democrats do not seem to see, or for whatever reason, do not want to deal with.
I have heard Democrats, including the President, complain about Grover Norquist and the Pledge. The President and others have even accused Republicans of violating their oath of office in signing the Pledge. But I have yet to hear the President or any Democrat in Congress, or progressive political commentators on television or radio who champion the Democratic Party and its objectives, take the matter any further than this. There is never any explanation of what they are violating, when it is said that they are violating their oath of office. What is the oath? TO UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION! But that is never said, nor is there ever an explanation as to how the Constitution is being violated.
Republican Pledge-signers do this in two ways. Article 1, SECTION 8 READS: “The Congress shall have the power 1. To lay and collect taxes.” The Norquist Pldedge says in effect that Republicans in Congress are never to raise taxes under any circumstances. THIS IS A CLEAR VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION!
Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress, the only branch of the national government established, could not raise taxes. The second group of Founding Fathers was decidedly in favor of changing this situation. They did so, by saying in the new Constitution that Congress would be able to raise taxes to acquire revenue for national government operations. It even enabled the Congress to raise revenue by imposing “duties, imposts, excises,” and by being permitted, under point 2: “To borrow money on the credit of the United States.”
The Founding Fathers made levying and collecting taxes the very first duty of Congress and the primary way it was to raise revenue for the government. No Republican is permitted to do that who signs the Pledge. Thus, he or she is violating their oath of office and the Constitution by not upholding a basic provision of the document.
There is another way the Constitution is violated by Republicans who sign the Pledge. To agree that they will never raise taxes as members of Congress, they are, in effect, amending the Constitution, specifically Article V that outlines the procedure for amending the document. It takes two forms. Two-thirds of both houses of Congress can pass an amendment to the Constitution that would have to be ratified by three-fourths of the states. The second procedure says that two-thirds of the states “shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which…”.shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as parts of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of the several states, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof.”
Grover Norquist has and continues to show that he does not give two licks about the constitutional authorization to raise tax revenues or about the authorized ways to amend that document. And he wants Republicans not to care about these matters, and he has been successful in getting compliance from them. He said to Steve Kroft in the 60 Minute interview, and rather proudly, that he regarded the Republican Party to be a “brand name,” and that he had been working hard for years to help it achieve this status. Kroft said to him that this was engaging in “merchandising” with respect to the Republican Party, and Norquist gleefully agreed. He said the merchandising of the Republican Party gives it the brand name of “the Party that will not raise taxes.”
This is Norquist admitting, but not willing to say so, or perhaps not even having an understanding of what he is admitting to with his comments, that he is not interested in the Republican Party “governing.” He sees the Republican Party functioning in Congress having the primary, if not sole purpose, of protecting and advancing the wealth of the rich and their corporations. Not raising taxes or lowering taxes on both, which he also favors, are additional means to help augment their great wealth.
But there is something else that Norquist, and those he works for, are also saying that has another meaning and consequences when Republicans sign the Pledge not to raise taxes in Congress: it is a way to restrict or eliminate using tax revenues to help lower the national deficit and national debt. Norquist and his backers want the national debt and deficit reduced by cutting spending, i.e. cutting social programs. That interest was demonstrated over the recent debt ceiling and deficit reduction crisis, when Republicans in Congress refused President Obama’s plan to have a balanced approach of revenues and cutting social programs to deal with the national debt.
The Republican Party, with Tea Party elements dominating it, literally held the United States economy hostage, to get a big reduction in government spending on social programs. Democrats could be heard vociferously criticizing the Republicans for hostage-taking. But again, they did not take their argument beyond a simple criticism, or sound bite comments about the Republicans engaging in hostage-taking, or brinkmanship politics.
Engaging in these activities, the Republicans are again showing that they are not interested in governance. They have a two-prong agenda that they are interested in that overlap and reinforce each other. They want to increase the wealth of the rich and their corporations, by not raising taxes on them, and by lowering taxes on both. And the Republicans are interested in cutting social programs, to be able to shift public money upwards to the rich and their corporations, and having some social programs like social security privatized. In short, putting social programs on the market, which takes social programs from Blacks and other minorities and from the poor, a move that many Republicans, especially southern White Republicans, want to see. This all feeds the Republican ideological spiel about “small government” and “limited government.”
If the Republicans gain the White House and acquire a majority in the House and Senate, they will move to destroy the basic social contract that the American¬ government has had with the American people since the 1930s: that of the government helping the middle class, and those lower on the social-economic scale, and helping elements of them to become middle class. It seems to me that the Democrats do not show enough fear of this “historical undoing,”- - this great loss to America’s future! One does not see them nor the so-called professional progressives in their ranks taking this case to the American people to make them aware of it, and afraid of those seeking to promote it. As usual, the Democrats of various stripes, show a lack of willingness to punch the Republicans like they take delight in punching Democrats. But the stakes are high- - nothing more or less than the basic social compact and the national government’s role in helping to promote it, and a future with these features in it.
But there is also something else at stake, and that is governance, and the national government being able to function in a way to govern. So we are back to Grover Norquist’s Pledge and all that is involved in it. Since this Pledge says that Republicans will not seek tax revenues, this then means that Republicans will oppose that idea, and seek to promote only lowering taxes and program cuts. The Democrats in turn will oppose such cuts, and this will then lead to a log-jam, a gridlock in politics and government in Washington D.C. and Republicans turning to hostage-taking and brinkmanship to try to get their way.
But this behavior won’t be just for this year, or again four years from now. This is what the Republican Party is offering as a permanent reality for the national government, as long as the Norquist Pledge stays in place and Republicans honor it, and a large electorate is supportive- - even against its own interest. Norquist, as he showed in his interview with Steve Kroft, takes great delight in gridlock, and dysfunctional government, using both as a threat to try to hold the President, the Democratic Party, and the Congress hostage, as well as the economy and the country’s credit rating.
The Democrats abet all of these pejorative objectives, because they won’t make it clear to the American people just how dangerous and damaging to the American government and political life the Norquist Pledge is. And it is able to be this formidable, because Republicans have let themselves be put in a place where they need to have their signature on the Pledge to get elected and to hold office. It is also formidable, because it has the Republicans willing to trample on the Constitution, which they are willing to do to get elected or to hold office.
But they are not the only ones willing to do this. Corporate elements are willing to do it, and so are a mass of Republican voters. The latter are propagandized heavily about the Republican Party being the Party that will not raise taxes. When the Republican electorate vote for this, they are at the same time voting for the Pledge, and, thus, are in effect accepting the violation of the oaths of office of the people they elect, and the two violations of the Constitution. Thus, gridlock, hostage-taking, and dysfunctional government is being rooted in the political thinking of a large segment of the American electorate. And this segment can thwart the functioning of the American government. It is not enlightened about what it is doing. And one would not expect Norquist, the Americans for Tax Reform, and the rich and their corporations to enlighten them of the great travesty in which they are engaged. And that also works against them, because tax revenues would help them, too.
But the Democrats are the real worrisome element here, because they make no effort to enlighten these constituencies, or any other voting element about these dire situations facing the country. They don’t see the grave threat to positive government, or the social programs, and the future of both in America. The fact that they can only talk superficially about Grover Norquist and his Pledge, when they deal with these matters at all, shows that they do not have a significant grasp of the situation- - or don’t want to have such a grasp; or perhaps, are even afraid to deal with the matter.
One hears talk about the President and the Democrats making the election of 2012 an election of choice between two different approaches to governing and about the direction the country should take. The Republicans show that their interest is fundamentally to increase the power and wealth of the rich and their institutions, end or decimate social programs, and create great wealth disparity. The Democrats could augment their efforts to draw a contrast between themselves and the Republicans by making the American people aware of the Norquist Pledge and its ominous consequences to government and the country, to “winning the future” of America, and the future of the “American Dream” for Americans. The Norquist Pledge strongly drives the Republicans to be as different as they are from Democrats, and what makes them the threat that they are to these things.
But the Democratic message has to go beyond the dangers for 2012. They have to show that the Norquist Pledge honored by Republicans elected to Congress, and by a sizable electorate offers America a future of continuous threats to the basic social contract, of gridlock government, of effective governance, and a future that severely diminishes the middle class and the opportunities for others to become a part of that class. Thus far, the Democrats and the professional progressives as well, have shown no backbone for this much larger fight- - indeed, haven’t shown that they even understand what the larger fight is. So one has to ask the question: “When will the Democrats and the professional progressives wake up and smell the bacon?” If this does not occur during the 2012 Presidential election, when polls say a large majority of Americans are in favor of taxing the rich, and would likely be against the Norquist Pledge if they understood it and its consequences, it may well be an awakening that will occur too late!
P.S.
It seems to me that four things can be said about Romney to use against him should he become the Republican Presidential candidate. First, he supports the Norquist Pledge even though he would never sign it. Second, he is incredibly arrogant and condescending. Third, he does not know who he is, which some in the Party have said, but not often or loud enough.
There is a video showing Romney castigating John Kerry when he ran for President in 2004, saying that Kerry was contradictory, inconsistent, and a “flip-flopper,” and that such a person should not be elected President! Romney did not see that he was actually talking about himself, that he was projecting his own character flaws onto Kerry. And he stills shows ignorance of his own character deficiencies. He has said more than once during his present bid for the White House that he is consistent in his views and that he exhibits more constancy in his thinking than anyone he knows. Political analysts continue making the opposite judgment about him and have been doing so for years. Clearly, Romney does not know who he is. A number of the ads against Romney could include: “Who is Mitt Romney. Does anyone know? Does Romney know?”
The fourth thing to be said about Mitt Romney in keeping with the theme that he does not know who he is, that he is not a “venture capitalist,” as he likes to say, or an “investment capitalist,” as he also likes to say, but is rather a PREDATOR CAPITALIST. Bain Capital that he helped to establish and worked at as a consultant and then as CEO, sought out and bought failing or failed corporations, cut them into pieces, sold off pieces for profit, and in the process eliminated jobs, or laid off employees, or transferred jobs out of the country. Bain would also buy a failing enterprise, send it into bankruptcy, restructure it, and sell it for profit. Or Bain would buy the assets of an enterprise and reject the employees and their union contract, terminating both. It would then allow the terminated employees to apply for jobs at the same enterprise, but at reduced wages, higher healthcare costs to themselves, little or no other benefits, and no pensions. Romney and Bain Capital were predators in the American economy, overwhelmingly interested in creating wealth for themselves, rather than creating jobs for people.
In opposing regulations on corporations, Romney is in effect endorsing predatory behavior by corporations on the market as a matter of course. This is what he really means by “free enterprise” or “free market.” And his ignorance or feigned ignorance about the government’s relationship to the American economy, past and present, should be called out. As economist Joel Magnuson wrote in Mindful Economics How the U.S. Economy Works: “Government has always played a central role in building capitalist systems, and capitalism could not have come into existence without it…laissez faire ideology aside, it was not that class of capitalist entrepreneurs, but government that shaped the development of the modern capitalist system” (pp. 111-112).
Sincerely Yours,
Dr. William D. Wright
Professor Emeritus of American and Black History
Southern Connecticut State University

AN EXTENDED OPEN LETTER TO JOE SCARBOROUGH

Dear Mr. Scarborough:

I saw most of the exchange you had with David Axelrod on your show Morning Joe on October 18, and it showed once again to me how deep your hostility goes toward President Obama, which you attempt to conceal with your low-key and subtle deprecating commentary on him. I don’t watch your show very often, and never in its entirety, and only when I purposely turn to it to see who you have invited to be your guests, and what they are talking about, and specifically, if the topic of conversation is the President.
I have always wondered why you are the host of a political talk show on MSNBC. You are a Republican and for the most part you favor a Republican political/economic/social agenda. Indeed, you once gave a reason as to why you didn’t run for the U.S. Senate, because you thought that you would be able to “have more influence over public policy as the host of Morning Joe, than….as a U.S. Senator.” (Wikipedia). Your book, The Last Best Hope provides a plan to try to help conservatives win a political majority in the U.S. Congress.
Thus, you stand in direct contradiction to the image that MSNBC seeks to project of itself, as being the antithesis to Fox, and the supporter of Democratic Party and progressive politics. You seek to promote a Republican agenda on your show that contradicts the MSNBC ideological “Lean Forward” spots, featuring the network’s progressive lineup, the likes of Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Lawrence O’Donnell, and Ed Schultz, and the progressive views and agenda they express. Of course, MSNBC has the right to select its television hosts. But the choice of you for one of its political programs seems rather schizoid. This is also reflected in the fact that when the hosts just mentioned get together to engage in political analysis, you are never a part of the gathering. You are excluded, as advertised by MSNBC, from these individuals and Al Sharpton, who will comprise the team to provide analysis for the 2012 Presidential election.
I saw part of a clip once showing the origins of the program you presently host, Mr. Scarborough. Lawrence O’Donnell was a member of it, and someone else, who I don’t remember. I do, however, remember seeing Laura Ingraham in that clip , and as a member of the early show. I don’t know what she was like back then, but I have seen her on the Fox channel a few times, and she impresses me as being a very hateful person, and she certainly exhibits this kind of hatred toward President Obama.
There are a number of people on Fox, or who appear on it, as guests, who exhibit this kind of venom toward the President: Sean Hannity, Dick Morris, Ann Coulter, Dennis Miller, and Andrew Napolitano, and it used to shoot out of the ears, nostrils and mouth of Glenn Beck. You do not seem to have a hatred of President Obama, Mr. Scarborough, but your strong dislike of him is always discernible, despite your subtle display of your attitude. And your dislike of him strikes me as being of a subtle southern White disparaging quality.
Indeed, that was my very first impression of you, and your attitude toward Obama, when I first saw you on television. It was during the Democratic Presidential nomination campaign in 2008. As I recall, you were substituting for Chris Matthews on that occasion, and you said straight out, without any hesitation, and with that low-key, so self-assured arrogance of yours, that Democrats should get behind Hillary Clinton, because she was the best candidate, and that Senator Barack Obama was inexperienced, unprepared, and lacked the capability to be President.
Since you were a Republican, I wondered to myself at the time, why you were saying to Democrats they should rally behind Hillary Clinton. I could see that your response could have been related to the talk that one heard repeatedly on television that referred to how Republicans, who had such a loathing of Senator Clinton, would be galvanized, organized, and mobilized to vote against her in the Presidential election. But for you to have that kind of motivation did not seem apropos to me, because it did not make any sense.
You had said that Barack Obama was a much weaker Presidential candidate than Senator Clinton. So, logically, you should have been interested in Obama winning the Democratic Presidential nomination. But instead of being logical, you were extremely illogical. That kind of extreme illogical thinking had to be accounted for, and it seemed to me at the time, it could be accounted for by you being unwilling to see- - even incapable of conceiving- - of a Black man in the White House, along with his Black family, and there being a Black “First Lady” at that residence. It would not take a rocket scientist to know that this scenario would be what nightmares were made of for a great number of southern Whites, and I believe that this was a nightmarish thought for you, too.
I was bolstered in this assessment of your disposition toward Obama by something else I heard you say, this time on your show Morning Joe. You criticized then candidate Obama for being unable to communicate effectively with White New York “blue-collar voters,” the so-called “Reagan Democrats,” and win them over. You pointed out how Senator Clinton was able to do so. I recall former mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown, voicing a different view. He said that Obama should not waste his time trying to win over these voters in New York or anywhere else, because they would never vote for him. Brown knew, what many of us Black people knew, that White “blue-collar” Reagan Democrats, in the main, were racist Democrats. Stanley Greenberg, pollster/researcher and political strategist for the Democratic Leadership Council had drawn that conclusion from his questioning of focus groups, and had told Bill Clinton that when he ran for the White House in 1992, something that Hillary Clinton doubtlessly had learned about, as well.
But with respect to your specific criticism of Senator Obama not being able to reach the “blue-collar” Reagan Democrats, you did not say, as Willie Brown did, that they were racists. You gave no hint of that whatsoever. It could not have been something you didn’t understand. You’re a White southerner, born and raised in Georgia, and you had been a Representative to the U.S. Congress between 1995 and 2001, representing the First District in Florida. You certainly knew of the racism in the South, and how White people treated Black people in that region, and how that treatment was increasingly of a subtle racist nature, as southern Whites had been taught to engage in by Barry Goldwater, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, and such conservative intellectuals as William F. Buckley, L. Brent Bozell Jr., James J. Kilpatrick, and others.
This subtle racism was embedded in the “new conservative movement” that was inaugurated in the South among southern Whites in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as a reaction to Blacks attaining civil and political rights and benefitting from government protection and government social programs. You eventually emerged from this movement as a politician, Mr. Scarborough, which continues to this day, with Tea Partiers being added to it. You turned a blind eye to the racism of the “blue collar” Reagan Democrats of New York, indeed, made it appear that they were not racist at all. You, in turn, blamed Senator Obama for not being able to communicate with them effectively. What you did, therefore, Mr. Scarborough, is what we Black people know so well: you blamed the Black victim, Senator Obama, and exonerated the White racist Reagan Democrats. You did this in a non-aggressive, subtle, but clearly discernible manner.
And I have to believe that you were utterly shocked when Senator Obama beat Hillary Clinton to gain the Democratic Party nomination for President. In your view, he was inexperienced, unprepared, and lacked the capabilities to be President. But he not only defeated Hillary Clinton, whose campaign he ran into a ditch, with her having to spend $10 million of her own money to keep it afloat, he also defeated the Clinton Machine, and the Democratic Party itself that supported Hillary Clinton throughout the nomination process. Then Senator Obama went on to beat a well-known American hero, Senator John McCain, and won ten red states in the process. This certainly sounds like someone who hasn’t got communication, organizing, or leadership skills, doesn’t it? None of this, of course, prepared Barack Obama to be President. But the fact is, no one is prepared to be the President of the United States, unless the person running for this position is a Vice-President who has been given significant opportunity to be a close advisor and active participant in a President’s administration, such as Joe Biden, for instance. You might know that Harry Truman had made a public appeal to John F. Kennedy, who had been in Congress for 14 years in 1959, not to run for President , saying that he was too young, too inexperienced, that he was unprepared, and that he had plenty of time to run for that office. Truman even made an appeal to prominent Democrats to try to dissuade Kennedy from running. Kennedy rejected Truman’s worries, and other appeals made to him. He felt he had the brains, the ability, and the vision to lead the country. So he sought the office, and won it. And he won it at a younger age than Obama.
I want to refer to a clip I recently saw on MSNBC that showed you conducting an interview with Bill Clinton, apparently at his Global Initiative headquarters, and that was an advertisement for your show. Mika Brzezinski was in the clip with the two of you, saying nothing in the portion I saw, but looking at the two of you and seeming to enjoy being part of the setting. You and Clinton were reminiscing about the years he was President between 1994 and 2000, the years you were in the House of Representatives. You had been one of the large contingents that White southerners had sent to Congress, primarily to the House, but some individuals to the Senate, as well, enabling the Republicans to gain a majority in the Congress, with a strong southern White core.
So many of the people who sent you and other White southerners to the Congress, as you know, Mr. Scarborough, had a strong disliking for Bill Clinton, because of his sexual escapades in Arkansas, his pro-choice views, his support for gays and lesbians, and especially his sympathy toward Blacks, and what they thought were his strong New Deal leanings and willingness to use the national government to help them. They, of course, were wrong about that, because Clinton had been informed by Stanley Greenberg, which was also the position of the Democratic Leadership Council, of which Clinton had once been chairman (1990) that the Party needed to back away from the activist government position, and the New Deal orientation, and to line itself more closely to the interest of the corporate elites, their institutions, and Wall Street to get more campaign funding. Clinton’s problem was that he needed the Black vote to win a Presidential election, so he had to show some interest to help them if he got into the White House, which was also a legitimate interest he had.
You said to Clinton, in that clip, Mr. Scarborough: “People say, well, those Tea Partiers, they’re crazy, and I always say, you should have seen us back in ’94 and ’95. We would fight like hell (which sent Clinton into laughter) but at the end of the day, President Clinton and the Republican leadership wanted what was best for America.” Clinton responded by simply saying: “It was very productive.” That was all there was to the clip.
The Clinton years in the White House were productive, and he and the Republican majority in Congress got many things done. Clinton with Republican aid, as well as with some Democrats, was able to balance several budgets, create a large government surplus, was able to create 18,000,000 jobs, many of them high-tech good-paying jobs, did what was called “welfare reform,” signed the NAFTA Treaty, signed the omnibus crime bill, and increased military spending.
But there was something else that occurred during the Clinton years in the White House, and that the Republican majority in the Congress was involved in, Mr. Scarborough. What continues to remain unknown, or ignored, is that the Clinton administration, with Republican Congressional help, was a major contributor to the financial crisis of 2008, the recession and the massive unemployment it produced, from which the country is presently trying to recover.
Clinton came into the White House considerably as an agent of Wall Street. His first Treasury Secretary was Wall Street mogul corporate banker, Robert Rubin. He appointed Alan Greenspan, who was in the pocket of Wall Street, twice as Federal Reserve chief. Another very important connection to Wall Street for the Clinton Administration was Sandy Weill. He got Clinton to endorse the merger between Citicorp and Travelers Insurance, which created the largest corporate financial institution in the world at that time. Weill changed the name to Citigroup, which he headed up. Clinton signed the merger into law in December 2000.
A year earlier Congress had passed the Gramm/Leach/Biley Act, that Clinton signed, bringing an official end to Glass/Steagall, that had been passed in the 1930s, and that functioned for decades to separate commercial banking from investment banking, among other things, to curtail excessive speculation on Wall Street. Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush continuously chipped away at Glass/Steagall and its restrictions, and then Clinton and the Republicans, officially brought Glass/Steagall to an end. This eliminated any serious regulation of the corporate financial institutions. It also facilitated a continued merger of corporate financial institutions, that had begun before Clinton entered the White House, but which greatly accelerated under him, and with the enthusiastic support of Republicans as well as some Democrats in Congress. Economist and political analyst Kevin Phillips wrote in Bad Money: “the 1995-2000 period saw a stunning total of 11,000 bank mergers and the crescendo peaked the next year following the repeal (of Glass/Steagall). Some five hundred new FHCs (financial holding companies) were also created.” (pp. xix-xx).
This vast number of mergers represented a massive growth in the size of individual corporations, a greater concentration of capital and wealth, and a greater centralization of corporate organizations. Clinton and the Republican dominated Congress contributed to these developments in another way, by taking the regulations off telecommunication corporations, with the Telecommunication Act of 1996, which unleashed a wave of corporate mergers in this field. In short, a greater centralization of this kind of corporate activity, and a vast increase of the power of corporate elites and their institutions over television and radio stations that the American people relied upon for news. In his State of the Union Address in 1996, Clinton proclaimed that “the era of big government was over,” while he was helping to foster an “era of big corporations” that are outside of constitutional oversight, that would be able to exercise great power over the American people, with less media and government protection against these institutions.
By ending Glass/Steagall, Clinton and Republicans in Congress (with some Democratic votes, as well) took away the regulation of the “shadow bank” that had grown up in the country. It operated in secret, and had created all kinds of financial devices to conduct business, such as “junk bonds”, hedge funds, credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) or collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), which all promoted aggressive speculation, mergers, and reckless abandon on the stock market.
But Clinton and you Republicans did not stop there, Mr. Scarborough. Congress passed, and he signed the Financial Mobilization Act that severely crippled existing regulatory agencies. He also signed the Commodity Futures Mobilization Act into law, which forbade the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from regulating derivatives and other exotic investments at the national and state level, which the CFTC had wanted to do; and, thus, to regulate the “shadow bank.” The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission of 2011 concluded that this piece of legislation “was a key turning point in the march toward the financial crisis.” (Lawrence Lessing, Republic Lost, p. 76).
But another key point was Clinton encouraging Americans to buy stock (especially technological stocks), which no President had ever done before. That resulted in many people borrowing against their mortgages, or from other sources, going heavily into debt to be able to buy stock. Clinton also knew that the corporate credit card institutions were gauging their customers that he and you Republicans in Congress had made possible by ending or watering down regulation of such institutions. Clinton, as well as Republicans, including you, Mr. Scarborough, seemed to have no qualms about this. So are you still willing to talk so confidently, and arrogantly, that you along with Clinton and Republican leadership in Congress, wanted “what was best for America?”
In your October 18 interview with David Axelrod, Clinton’s name came up. Axelrod said that he had enjoyed the interview you had had with Clinton, of which I only saw a portion as an advertising clip. He graciously complemented Clinton, saying that he “was his usual brilliant self,” to which you concurred, repeating that phrase. But Axelrod also said to you that as he thought about it, how cozy and amiable the two of you were together in the interview, that he “snapped-back” as he remembered that you had voted to impeach Clinton; thus, showing that he was not buying this “mushy scene.”
This was when you referred to the Tea Partiers and how they were alleged to be crazy, and how Clinton and the Republican leadership fought each other. You slighted the Tea Party reality in the comment that you made, and implied that the fight that President Obama had with them was nothing compared to Clinton’s fight with the Republican leadership. This, of course, was absurd, and Axelrod knew it, fully aware of how extreme, obtuse, and racist Tea Partiers were who were elected to the House, and whom the Republican leadership couldn’t control. You even engaged in a subtle deprecation of the character, communication skills, and the leadership of President Obama. You said to David Axelrod, in a matter of fact way, and as if what you were saying was so clearly the truth: “You guys owned Washington for two years, the Democrats. Do you think he (Obama) has learned how to work at least inside of his own party in Washington better over the last two years?”
David Axelrod took exception to the comment. He said: “Joe, I have heard you say this, as well. You said he had a majority his first two years. The fact is he passed more- - you can’t have it both ways. He was attacked for doing too much: shouldn’t have done health care reform, shouldn’t have done financial reform, shouldn’t have done this and that.” You abruptly countered Axelrod, saying: “I didn’t attack him for doing too much. I attacked him for doing the wrong thing.” Axelrod came back with “Well, that’s fine. But he did them. So don’t say that he couldn’t get things done. You may disagree with what he did, but he certainly got things done.”
You first criticized President Obama, by implication in your first remark that he had not been successful as President because, as was inferred by you, he had not been able to communicate effectively with Republicans in Congress and bring them along in a bipartisan manner to help him achieve things. You were back- - or continuing in your mold- - of blaming the Black victim and exonerating the White perpetrators. There would be no way for you not to know, Mr. Scarborough, that the Republicans in Congress had consciously and deliberately dedicated themselves to making certain that Obama failed as President. This meant that they, as part of their strategy in Congress, were not going to be receptive to his communications, his overtures to be cooperative, or his efforts to promote bipartisanship to achieve things for the American people. Your great dislike of President Obama was showing, forcing you to ignore an obvious reality, or you were trying to cover it up.
Your dislike of the President also presented itself in the way you tried to show that Obama could not communicate effectively with the Democratic Party, and that he was ineffectual in leading it. Axelrod rejected that notion out of hand, indicating how much he had gotten done, which implied that he communicated with and led his party well. Checked by Axelrod, you then said he did the “wrong thing” during his first two years in office. One of these wrong things, apparently, was to put some regulations on the corporate financial institutions that you, Clinton, and Republicans had taken off, that had helped to produce a financial and economic disaster. Another thing that was wrong, apparently, was establishing a national credit bureau to protect American credit card holders from corporate financial institutions that you, Clinton, and Republicans permitted to gauge, especially with arbitrary and exorbitant fees.
Apparently, the following things were also the wrong things for the President to have done in his first two years in office- -according to your blanket statement: The Lily Ledbetter Fair Play Act to help women achieve equal pay. Putting two women on the U.S. Supreme Court. Signing a new G.I. Bill into law to aid returning war veterans. Increasing technology to be put in public schools. Making more college student loans available. Authorizing the FDA to regulate tobacco to protect the nation’s youth. Giving the middle class the largest tax cut in its history. And signing a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia, thereby winning the Nobel Peace Prize that he was given on the promise that he would do something significant for world peace, along with Dmitry Medvedev.
All of these things, and much more, the President was able to achieve with the help of the Democratic Party, which were elements of the Democratic Party agenda. And here you were, Mr.Scarborough, a Republican, hosting a political talk show on MSNBC, the channel that supports Democrats and progressive thinking and programs, denouncing, by implication, the President, the Democratic Party, and its legislation. This situation is totally incongruous. This is the kind of massive denunciation that one would expect from the Fox channel, and its cast of characters, as well as from conservative radio talk shows. But coming from MSNBC makes this something to be described as incongruous, at a minimum, a bit schizoid when fully contemplated.
But there is much more to your implying that Obama had not been successful legislatively as President, and your inability to give him credit for what he has done, and the subtle way you persistently seek to make him appear less than. This kind of behavior can be traced back to the long history of White racism in this country, and particularly, its implementation in the South. For centuries White racists claimed that Blacks were nonhumans or subhuman, that they were innately, cerebrally, morally, and psychologically inferior, that they had no rights, knowledge, or ideas that Whites had to respect, that they could publicly be mocked and ridiculed, that they could be called any name Whites wished to call them, that they were never to be praised, honored, or respected, that they could be subjected to verbal and criminal violence, without public criticism or criminal prosecution, that they could be blamed for anything that Whites wanted to blame them for, ( recently, Susan Smith in South Carolina drowning her two children, and Charles Stuart, killing his pregnant wife in Boston), and that they were a social and criminal danger to the country, and had to be kept in “their place.”
This White racist thinking and social/political reaction to Black people was deeply rooted in American history, and particularly in the history, culture, and social life of the South, as well as in the psychology of Whites in that region. These racist features were deeply imbedded in the Democratic Party that dominated the South for decades and that only White people could participate in until the Democratic “White primary” was outlawed in the 1940s. When southern Whites shifted out of the Democratic Party, and into the Republican Party between the 1960s and the 1990s, they embedded this racist history and the racist deprecation of Blacks in their new party, and also in the so-called “new conservative movement” (that calls to mind the term “New South” in the latter 19th century, the era of “Jim Crow” and disfranchisement) in both instances, in a necessary and unavoidable, subtle manner. The “new conservatives” are found mainly in the states of the former Southern Confederacy, and they are the base of the Republican Party.
The new conservatives had to learn how to use language so that their words did not evidence any obvious racist thought, sentiment, or feeling. The language had to appear as if it were genuine conservative language, reflecting genuine conservative principles, or a genuine conservative philosophy. Words and phrases popped up that were ostensibly devoid of racism and that were projected as things that conservatives were critical of and philosophically rejected, such as “big government,” “government spending,” “welfare,” “dependency,“ government infringement upon states,” “taking power from the states,” “government suppression of individual freedom,” and “government violation of the Constitution.” All of these words and phrases coming from the new conservatives who are the base of the Republican Party are related to the desire to keep a White over Black hierarchical social relationship in the South that Whites have seen the U.S. government continuing to destroy legally, and with its political actions and social programs that benefit Blacks; thus, making the words and phrases attacking “big government,” “big spending,” etc., euphemistic expressions, subtle racist expressions to promote racist objectives.
The subtle racism of the Republican Party and the new conservative movement has been on public display since Barack Obama decided to run for President, and has been strong all the years he has been President, even if expressed in a subtle manner, although he has also been victim of blatant racist attacks. We have seen the President’s human status and humanity deprecated, his American birth denied, his American citizenship denied. He is faulted for about anything he says or does. He has been called all kinds of names, not only blatant racist ones, such as “tar baby,” but also names such as socialist, communist, fascist, Jihadist, anti-Christian, and terrorist, which are names he’s called by people who would like to be able publicly to call him other names of a traditional racist type.
And, as to calling the President a “socialist,” what do you think the southern and western Republicans/new conservatives would do, Mr. Scarborough, if they learned that the Pledge of Allegiance, written in 1892, and that their children recite every day in public schools, was written by a socialist, Reverend Francis Bellamy, who was a member of the Christian Social Gospel Movement, and who argued that Jesus was a socialist? Is this something you can see yourself disclosing on your show to educate your viewers?
We always hear that the Republican attack against Obama, inside the Congress and without, is not a racist one, that Senator Mitch McConnell did not launch a racist attack in Congress, when he declared that the number one priority of Republicans in that body would be to see that Obama was a one-term President. The argument made was that this was just normal political behavior, namely, the opposing Party wanting one of their own in the White House. Of course, Republicans would like to have one of their own there. That’s expected, but the effort to get someone in the White House does not require engaging in racist behavior to deprecate the human status and humanity of an opponent- - Barack Obama. Southern Whites did not say or imply that Bill Clinton was not a human being, or was not an American, or that he was not a citizen of the country, that there was nothing he said or did that they had to respect. The Republicans in Congress did not relate to him in these ways. Indeed, as much as they might have disliked him, this did not keep them from trying to cooperate with him, and to work with him to get things done between 1994 and 2000. This is what you said in so many words, Mr. Scarborough.
With Mitch McConnell leading the way Republicans in Congress subjected President Obama to a political lynching that has gone on for three years, doing whatever they could to make him fail- - to make a Black President fail! They used the filibuster an unprecedented number of times. They refused or held up his administrative appointments, to weaken his administration. They refused or held up his federal judicial appointments. They delayed passage of legislation he sought in a kind of brinkmanship way, before they passed it. They sought to discredit everything he proposed, or find fault with it, even going so far to the irrational point of opposing things they themselves favored, but turned against, when the President favored or suggested them. For three years they tried diligently to keep him from governing, or to make it hard for him to do so, and are continuing with this behavior.
There has always been a White racist fear of a Black person succeeding at something that has always been the prerogative of Whites to have, to pursue, or to do. Such success not only destroys the racist myth about Black innate incapacities. There is also the deep trembling fear “that if you let one in, they all want to come in;” in short, fear of integration or the displacement of Whites. If a Black President succeeded then there will be other Blacks seeking to be President in the future.
This is a racist fear that can be traced far back in American history. Thomas Jefferson for instance, publicly denounced the poetry of the Black slave Phillis Wheatley (which was praised by some in England), because he believed that Blacks did not have the cerebral capacity or the sensitivity to write poetry, and he sought to discourage Blacks from attempting to do so, arguing that only Whites could write poetry. William Lloyd Garrison tried to ban Frederick Douglass from speaking at abolition rallies, afraid that this would encourage other Blacks to speak at them and possibly pushing out Whites or diminishing their presence at such rallies.
White boxing promoters refused to let Jack Johnson fight White heavyweight champions, not only afraid of him beating them, but that any victory he had would encourage other Blacks to want a shot at that title. And there were the major league baseball players, sports writers, and fans who tried their hardest to make Jackie Robinson fail, to keep major league baseball a “White man’s game,” but they did not succeed. Robinson opened the door to other Blacks. And now the determined and concerted effort to make Obama fail as President. His failure would demonstrate that a Black person can’t handle this job. Being President of the United States represented the last “White only” job in America. Obama has brought that to an end. That alone stimulates hatred toward him. He has taken from Whites the one last thing they could say was theirs and theirs only in America, and they desperately want it back.
You displayed your continuing subtle southern White disparagement of Obama rather recently, along with Pat Buchanan. I happened to catch the tail end of what seemed to be the two of you engaging in an attack on President Obama for not having been more aggressive and stronger against the Tea Party elements in the debt ceiling crisis. The suggestion was made that had he been stronger, the crisis that was occurring could probably have been avoided. Both of you were blaming the Black victim and exonerating the White perpetrators.
You and Buchanan, Mr. Scarborough, ignored the racism of the Tea Partiers, and in doing so, denied that it existed. So many of these people came to Washington with the purpose of joining with other Republicans to make Obama fail as President- - to make a Black President fail! A study was published about the Tea Partiers, which showed that they were not new to American politics, that they were overwhelmingly White, from the South and West, that they were overwhelmingly issue-oriented, anti-government, and had a strong dislike of Black people. I guess you and Pat Buchanan did not hear about the study, which had substantial media attention. White Tea Partiers were giving every indication that they were willing to destroy the faith and credit of the United States, and were even willing to send the economy back into deep recession, even depression, if that was what it would take to make this Black President fail.
You and Pat Buchanan, Mr. Scarborough, were not willing to deal with the reality, or the obtuseness and racist irrationality of the White Tea Partiers. And neither of you showed any knowledge of the danger of a wound up irrational psychology. Such people listen only to their own drummer. Trying to be tough and dominating with them, when you know that they hate you, don’t respect you, and want to do you harm, could easily drive them to doing exactly what you don’t want them to do, and what they say they will do- - because they are determined to best you and don’t mind the consequences of their actions!
Obama understood this situation a lot better than you and Pat Buchanan did, Mr. Scarborough. He saw these Tea Party elements posing a serious threat to America’s credit rating, and to the economy, and he had to take the risk they posed into account, which you and Buchanan did not take into account, from the way you both were talking and condemning the President for his alleged ineptitude.
I can give you an example of a situation that can throw some light on what Obama was up against having to deal with the Tea Partiers that the Republican leadership couldn’t deal effectively with, which was also something he had to consider. The example involves FDR. There were Black leaders who wanted to push an anti-lynching bill through the Congress. Walter White, Executive Director of the NAACP went to Washington to pressure the President to push for the legislation, but he refused to do so, giving White his reasons, which the latter recorded in his autobiography, A Man Called White: “I did not choose the tools with which I must work,” he told me. “Had I been permitted to choose them I would have selected different ones. But I’ve got to get legislation passed by Congress to save America. The Southerners by reason of the seniority rule in Congress are chairmen or occupy strategic places on most of the Senate and House committees. If I came out for the anti-lynching bill now, they will block every bill I ask Congress to pass to keep America from collapsing. I just can’t take that risk.” (pp. 169-170).
Neither you, Mr. Scarborough nor Pat Buchanan, would likely say that Roosevelt was not strong of character, was not an effective communicator, and was not a strong Presidential leader. But Roosevelt did not pounce on the Southern Democrats in Congress and try to dominate or brow-beat them about the anti-lynching bill. He did not want to provoke their racism, and its irrationality, as he had no doubt that they would block all of his legislation and seek to keep him from saving the country, if it meant that they would lose what they regarded as their right to lynch Black people, or to do with them as they wished. As Roosevelt so well knew, these were the descendants of those White southerners who were willing to destroy the United States, and indeed, tried to, because they were being prevented from expanding their Black chattel slavery westward and continuing to have this kind of domination over Black people.
Obama had been dealing with the irrationality of Republicans in Congress, their political lynching of him that involved thwarting his ability to help millions of Americans in great need; their willingness to see these Americans suffer. He also had the experience of dealing with the southerners in the Senate who opposed his effort to give government loans to save Chrysler and General Motors, and the American auto industry. This was wholly un-patriotic, and also incredibly irrational, because those who strongly opposed this effort, Mitch McConnell, Jim DeMint, Lamar Alexander, and Richard Shelby, lived in states that were subsidizing foreign automakers. So the President had the full understanding that these southerners and others in the Senate, whom these people got to follow them, were willing to see Chrysler and General Motors, and the American auto industry go down, and even more than that: were willing to throw people, their jobs, their personal wealth, and an important part of the Midwestern economy under the bus, rather than see Obama have this victory.
And now the Tea Partiers, in the same way, were threatening the country’s credit rating, and the American economy, and willing to maintain the hurt of millions of Americans, and to put millions more in pain- - to make Obama fail, to bring a Black President down! The President chose not to take the risk, and he made the concession of cuts in the national debt, without getting tax revenues as part of the deal, and to put the national debt problem in the hands of the Deficit Reduction Commission.
And speaking about not getting tax revenues to lower the debt, let’s bring in Grover Norquist and his Pledge. I don’t know if you have talked about him and his Pledge on your show, although I should think this has come up. But I doubt seriously, that you have talked about it, in the way I would talk about it and have in op-ed pieces. This Pledge says that Republicans will not raise taxes under any circumstances, while they are in office. Almost all Republicans in Congress have signed that Pledge, including the six who are sitting on the Deficit Reduction Commission. That means that all of these Republicans are in violation of their oath of office and the Constitution in two serious ways, as will be shown.
Article I, SECTION 8 of the Constitution reads: “The Congress shall have the power 1. To lay and collect taxes.” This was something that the Continental Congress in the previous Confederation government could not do. The second group of Founding Fathers, who drew up what is known as the Constitution, made the laying and collection of taxes the very first responsibility or duty of the Congress. To say that members of Congress are not to raise taxes under any circumstances is a violation of Article I SECTION 8, 1. of the Constitution, and those members of Congress who violate it are violating their oath of office, which is to uphold and protect the Constitution. They also violate the Constitution in another way.
When members of Congress are forbidden to levy taxes this, in effect, is amending the Constitution, without going through the proper procedure, as outlined in Article V, that says 2/3 of both houses have to pass an amendment that ¾ of the states have to ratify; or the method of 2/3 of the states convening a convention to propose amendments that would require the ratification of ¾ of the states. Do you have the stones, Mr. Scarborough, to criticize the Republicans in Congress on your show for violating their oath of office and the Constitution? And do you have the stones to say on your show that the Republicans on the Debt Reduction Commission are in violation of their oath of office and the Constitution, honoring the Norquist Pledge not to raise taxes? And that this is all a disservice to the government and the American people who both need the revenues?
I have one last thing to put in this extended letter to you, Mr. Scarborough, and that is the comments I saw you make on your show in response to the recent toppling of Moammar Gaddafi in Libya. On the day he was captured and killed, you had David Ignatius of the Washington Post on your show via telephone from Libya. He made a reference to how you and other Republicans had opposed the President’s effort to take action against Gaddafi. Ignatius said he agreed with the President’s effort, thought it was well conceived and executed and was a success that benefitted America and Libya.
You had the documentary filmmaker Sebastian Junger on the show, who said he would be going to Libya to make a documentary film on events there. He also praised President Obama for his conception and handling of the mission, saying that using the method he did of intelligence, technology, and strategic air strikes was preferable to putting 100,000 soldiers on the ground, and he praised the fact that no American lives were lost. He also said that he was very pleased that Libyans were waving American flags, which showed considerable Libyan favor toward the United States. At that point, Mika Brzezinski interrupted, saying that the producers wanted to bring on a correspondent from Libya. You held her and the producer off, saying: “Let me complete the thought (that had been expressed by Junger), because that is so critical that in this “Arab Spring” you haven’t seen the burning of American flags, the burning of Israel’s flags, didn’t see it in Egypt. But as you said, not in Libya, a remarkable scene that we thought we would never see the waving of American flags in Libya.”
Sebastian Junger thanked the President for this unexpected, but very important event in Libya. But you, Mr. Scarborough, did not thank the President, incapable, or unwilling to do so. With your comments you were thanking some invisible, magical something or other, somewhere in space, that miraculously helped to bring about this “remarkable scene.” The remarkable scene had been produced by someone quite real: President Obama (and others, of course).
But you couldn’t recognize the President’s role in this, by comment. You were unable to show him any respect, could not congratulate or praise him, could not do a very patriotic thing. Doing none of these things was your subtle disparagement and demeaning of President Barack Hussein Obama. You showed your continuing subtle southern White disparaging disposition toward the President.
But you were not alone in displaying this kind of pitiful, even pathetic behavior. Many Republicans displayed it, even some in Congress. They could not show Obama respect or give him any credit for the successful mission in Libya. Senators Marco Rubio and John McCain consciously and deliberately belittled President Obama by just praising the French and the British, and neither one mentioned nor congratulated the Arab countries that had contributed to that successful mission. Republicans, as usual, were following the prepared script, which they seem to get every day. Listening to one Republican is like listening to all of them. They are such a broken record. According to David Ignatius, you joined the throng of Republicans who reacted negatively to a comment that an official in the Obama administration had made about the President “leading from behind” in the mission.
This official was clearly mistaken. But the fact that the remark was made was all that the Republican script writer had to hear. A script was seemingly produced calling for all Republicans to pounce on the phrase and on Obama, and the pouncing amounted to Republicans in unison condemning the President for taking too long to act, for violating the Constitution, for failing to show leadership, for being irresponsible in letting the French and British take the lead in the mission (which one could hear one Republican after another saying they were not competent to do), and for failing to act as a strong commander-in-chief.
Political analyst John Heilemann was critical of this extreme negativity, and had praise for the President and his success in Libya. He said the statement that the President was “leading from behind” had to be interpreted as him being engaged in forging alliances and a coalition to carry out the mission. The President himself cleared up the matter on the Jay Leno Show, when he said the U.S. led throughout the mission, from getting the UN to sign off on a resolution to keep Gaddafi from killing Libyans, possibly by the thousands, establishing a “no fly zone,” authorizing limited military action, from the air, and indicating that he and other American personnel were in consultation with NATO and Arab allies throughout the mission.
What doubtlessly angers you and other Republicans, Mr. Scarborough, is that President Obama has turned into a magnificent commander-in-chief. The efforts of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, and other Republicans in the foreign policy field, to discredit him have utterly failed. The President has taken a prize away from Republicans: the self-indulgent prize that Republicans were tougher on defense and handled national security better than Democrats. The person you have continued to disparage, in your way, over a period of years, Mr. Scarborough, turns out to be the one that Americans want answering the phone at three o’ clock in the morning. In this instance as in others you’re on MSNBC seeking to demean the Democratic President and a successful foreign policy mission he achieved.
There is something- - among many things- - you have not learned about President Obama, Mr. Scarborough, although Republicans in Congress have. It is also not something they would be willing to talk about, because this would be talking about the President in a positive way, and about one of his strengths. The Republicans in Congress know that the President is relentless. When he puts his mind to do something he pursues it until he achieves it, and only gives up when it is clear to him that he cannot achieve the goal. But then, he’ll make an effort to come at the objective in another way, as he did with the American Jobs Bill. He couldn’t get it passed whole, so he’s seeking to get it passed piece-meal. This was the kind of relentless quality he showed pursuing his Economic Recovery and Investment Act, his health care-reform, his relentless pursuit of the Pentagon to get an Afghanistan strategy he could accept,his pursuit to save the American auto industry, his relentless pursuit and killing of Osama Bin Laden, and his relentless effort to run Gaddafi out of Libya. But had you had your eyes open back in 2008, Mr. Scarborough, you would have seen this trait in Obama, then. He pursued Convention Delegates in a relentless manner, not deviating from the strategy. You also apparently did not see the relentless way he pursued red states during the Presidential election, that even people in his Party did not want him to do, and that some hosts on MSNBC criticized him for doing. But then were amazed when he accomplished that goal, bringing ten red states into his win column.
It seems to me, Mr. Scarborough, that you, owing to your ingrained subtle southern White proclivity, will remain incapable of understanding President Obama as a person, as President, and as a Presidential leader, and what he means to America, and will always be obliged to find fault with him and to try to diminish him. He gives meaning to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and the “promises of America” like no other President has been able to provide. He represents and symbolizes what America is supposed to be about, an America that Republicans, from my observations of them for years, would not recognize or know if it crawled into their laps and bit them in their crotches!
Obama validates America just like Black people have always validated America and in a way that White people have never been able to do. Blacks as slaves for centuries, and victims of racist oppression for centuries, still had faith in the country, in its documents, ideals, and promises of freedom and opportunities, and even fought in wars to help preserve all of this, and the possibility of the country continuing an effort to create “a more perfect Union”- - knowing the large role they played- - had to play- - in pushing Whites and the country in that direction.
When Whites have thrown American ideals, values, and promises to the ground and trampled on them- - which they did for centuries, which meant simultaneously trampling on Blacks for centuries - - the latter always withstood the trampling, picked up the trampled ideals, values, and promises and handed them back to Whites, saying to them: “try it again, to live up to the ideals, values, and promises of America, that you profess to uphold, for all Americans.” Frederick Douglass handed these things back to Whites with his Fourth of July Oration of 1852. Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Ida Wells-Barnett, A. Philip Randolph, and Dorothy Height also handed them back. Martin Luther King, Jr. handed these things back to Whites with his “I Have A Dream” speech in Washington D.C. in 1963. President Obama is continuing this long-standing Black tradition, as he seeks to promote bipartisanship with Republicans in Congress, and seeks to get Whites who oppose him to live up to the ideals, values, and promises of America, and to strive with Blacks and others, including other Whites, to try to build the “more perfect Union.” You have doubtlessly heard President Obama talk like this, but you haven’t shown, from what I have seen you say in instances on television, that you are able to understand what he is saying. I don’t think it is a coincidence that Republicans, like yourself, Mr. Scarborough, do not talk about building “a more perfect Union.” You and Republicans like you seem impervious to pursuing and achieving this national objective, which is explicitly prescribed in the Preamble to the Constitution.

Sincerely Yours,
Dr. W. D. Wright

AN EXTENDED LETTER TO MR. MARTIN BASHIR, RE: "THE KATZENJAMMER TWINS," PRESIENT OBAMA, AND THE REALPOLITIK CONTEXT OF AMERICAN NATIONAL POLITICS

October 2011


Dear Mr. Bashir:

I saw the two interviews you had with Cornel West, and how in each instance, he expressed extreme hostility toward President Obama. I know something about West, as he was someone I wrote about in my book Crisis of the Black Intellectual (2007). I have sent you some of the comments I made about him in that work. Your interview with him has induced me to want to say more about him to counter what he said to you, which will lead to a discussion of the political framework through which Obama has to function as President, which West, as well as his side-kick Tavis Smiley, seem to know little about. This could be said about many political pundits and media political analysts. Obama has shown that he understands this political context very well, and seeks to respond to it on the basis of what it is, and he has had his success against it being true to himself and doing things his way.
In both of the interviews you had with Cornel West, and other interviews of him I have seen or read about, where he talked about President Obama, such as his interview with Playboy, he showed a lack of knowledge of what Obama has achieved in the White House, and against enormous opposition- - indeed, determined obstruction! The level of West’s hostility to Obama would seem to preclude him wanting to know what he has achieved, as this would under-cut much of what he says about him; which is true generally of his detractors on the Left. For your information, I have sent you a copy of Professor Robert P. Watson of Lynn University’s publication of the President’s achievements that appeared on the Internet, entitled “The 244 Accomplishments of President Obama.” Without question Obama has been the most successful President, legislatively, since Lyndon Baines Johnson.
I have also sent you Watson’s researched publication and this letter on the belief that you will have Cornel West on your program again, because he is seeking, along with others, such as Ralph Nader, Paul Krugman, and Robert Kuttner to appear on political shows to engage in a discussion of what they euphemistically call a “progressive” agenda, and that they would like to get into a discussion or debate with President Obama about.
When West and the other people mentioned use the word “progressive” or the phrase “progressive agenda,” they are being deliberately deceptive, which is why I used the word “euphemistically.” West, Nader, Krugman, and Kuttner are all socialists, but do not use that description for themselves knowing the public hostility to that term. So they come up with euphemisms to describe themselves: liberals, radicals, radical democrats, or progressives.
Paul Krugman referred to himself as a liberal in a book he published in 2009 entitled Conscience of a Liberal. But in the April 6, 2009 issue of Newsweek, the writer of an article on Krugman, Evan Thomas, said of him that “Ideologically, Krugman is a European Social Democrat” (p. 24), with no demur from Krugman, via quoted remarks in the article. But he did in fact confirm this reality, as the article revealed, because he wanted President Obama to nationalize the big corporate banks during the financial crisis, the “zombie” banks, as he called them. No President would ever think of nationalizing America’s banks, and would not be able to get away with it; and, indeed, would not or ever have enough staff and money to make this an ongoing program. Krugman’s position was sheer ideology at work that produced his fanciful thinking. And it is on this level of fantasy that Krugman and other socialists seek to evaluate and debate President Obama.
Cornel West is clearly one of these people and his ideological and fanciful thinking was evidenced in his first interview with you. He complained about Obama choosing Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers as two of his top economic advisors- - people from Wall Street, as he had it. He said that the President should have chosen Krugman or Robert Kuttner to be among his top economic advisors. West was not only being ideological and fanciful, he showed that he had his head in the sand. Obama is not a socialist, and for that reason alone, he would not appoint socialists as his top economic advisors. And he would know that the Senate would never confirm such people, which is what West should have known. Republicans in and out of Congress were calling Obama a socialist, Marxist, Leninist, and even communist, as a way of trying to discredit him. Therefore, socialist economic advisors were clearly out of the question. But West, in his usually overly-dramatic way, tried to convince you that Obama had betrayed “progressive” thinking and “progressives” with his choices for top economic advisors, and that it was necessary to be critical of him for doing that and calling him out on it. And he gave no thought to the people chosen by the President to be his advisors doing what the President wanted them to do. And, incidentally, Geithner did not work on Wall Street. He had been head of the New York branch of the Federal Reserve System, which means, of course, he worked with Wall Street.
There is another thing which you may or may not know, as to why West was angry about Obama’s appointment of Lawrence Summers as one of his top economic advisors. When Summers was President of Harvard University, he had a vitriolic confrontation with West in his office. He accused West of engaging in activities, namely, making rap and hip-hop CDs in his effort to communicate his thoughts to urban Blacks, instead of engaging in the kind of scholarship Summers said, that was expected of a Harvard professor. The confrontation shocked Harvard, had extensive national coverage in the media that depicted West as being dressed down and humiliated, and that saw him eventually leave Harvard and go to Princeton.
In your interviews with Cornel West, Mr. Bashir, you indicated that you had become aware of Tavis Smiley. He and West seem to be great friends. I call them the “Katzenjammer Twins.” They both have the attitude, owing to their successes, and their public exposure, and opportunities to speak about the situation of Blacks in the country, that they are supremely important voices among Blacks. The two of them went to China together, presumably to talk to and to educate some Chinese about Black people in America, or about America itself, from some of the comments I heard them make via a video. They now have, as you know, a radio talk show together. And, together, they excoriate President Obama- - as they argue, for not doing enough for Black people; or to make attacks against Wall Street and to tie Obama to it, in the sense of him being its agent.
West and Smiley both regard themselves as “power brokers” among Blacks, two people of great influence among Blacks. Melissa Harris-Perry, whom you know, Mr. Bashir, and who has been on your program, was annoyed by this presumptuous attitude by the Katzenjammer Twins, which began when Obama ran against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination. In February of 2008, Harris-Perry wrote an article entitled: “Who Died and made Tavis King?” She said in that piece: “Over the past two months African Americans have emerged as equal partners in a multi-racial, intergenerational, bipartisan, national coalition led by the most exciting political candidate of the past four decades, who also happens to be the first African-American presidential possibility in our history. So why is Tavis Smiley throwing a tantrum?” (Randall Kennedy, The Persistence of the Color Line, p. 90).
There were other Black intellectuals and leaders who criticized Smiley and West, as there were those who criticized defenders of Obama, like Melissa Harris-Perry. The Katzenjammer Twins had it in their heads, and tried to invest other Blacks with the idea, that Obama was not racially black enough to be President. This was incredibly absurd thinking. Whenever, in the history of America, has being racially black, or ethnically Black, been a requirement to be President? West particularly liked saying that Obama was not black/Black enough for the Black vote, saying along with Smiley, that Hillary Clinton was. Andrew Young, former mayor of Atlanta at the time, and who Bill Clinton had appointed as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, publicly declared in an interview, that Hillary Clinton was Blacker than Obama could ever be.
There were two incidents that took place during the Democratic nomination process that resulted in Tavis Smiley moving into an irrevocable hostility toward Barack Obama. He moderated an annual Black Forum on national television, which invited Black intellectuals, leaders, and community activists to talk about issues and problems facing Black communities, or Blacks in their relationship to White people. I watched three of these Forums which in each case went on for hours. My view was that they were “ventilation sessions,” “feel good moments,” but utterly useless at providing help for Black communities, or Blacks in their interactions with Whites. This was proven by the fact that the Forums always came back to the same issues and problems, with the same kind of discussions that provided the same kind of answers, which implied that they were not having any noticeable impacts in Black communities.
Smiley invited then candidate Obama to two of the Forums, and each time, he refused the invitation. Hillary Clinton accepted an invitation, and appeared at a Forum. If she could do it, why couldn’t Obama? Smiley was livid about the rejections, and became unforgiving toward Obama. One could think of two reasons why Obama did not appear at a Forum. The first might have been that he was not anxious to appear on a program hosted by someone claiming that he was not black/Black enough to get the Black vote, and who tried to discredit him during his campaign for the Democratic Party nomination. The President could well imagine Smiley bringing up the “not Black enough” matter at the Forum to continue trying to discredit and undermine him.
The second possible reason for avoiding a Smiley Forum was that Obama did not want to deal with the question of what his “Black Agenda” would be: the specific things that he would do for Blacks as President. This is something that Smiley, West, and others like the Katzenjammer Twins, were interested in having nomination candidate Obama address. But Obama knew, as others knew and said so, who were favorable to him, that he could not promote a Black Agenda as President; that “race-specific” programs were at the moment, politically taboo. One can conclude that he did not want to be put on the spot about that, or having to say something declarative and definitive with respect to affirmative action, another matter of potential liability for him seeking the Democratic Party nomination. Obama could well believe that Smiley and even others at a Forum would confront him with these politically toxic matters.
West had his own special stimulus for his acute hostility toward Barack Obama; indeed, there seemed to have been two stimuli. The first was that Obama dwarfed, and, thus, suppressed, West’s exalted image among Black people- - a pushing aside- - he could not possibly have liked. The second stimuli came up in your second interview with West, Mr. Bashir. You referred to what West had said in his Playboy interview, that President Obama had not returned his phone calls and had not thanked him for, as he said, participating in 65 events during his Presidential run against John McCain. You asked whether he was hurt by this. He did not want to answer, but he finally did, and said he was, and that the whole matter said something negative, in his mind, about Barack Obama.
In your second interview with West, he also said some things I wish to comment on. West says things that seem to reflect deep knowledge, critical analysis and insight, or utterances of a moral or humanistic quality. He also does this in an overly dramatic manner, with looks, gestures, bobbing, weaving, and bending movements to give emphasis, which he seems to believe, validate what he says. But as I indicated in the pages I sent to you, Mr. Bashir, a critique of what West says can reveal that he is often throwing out empty and even deceptive phrases, and sometimes just plain nonsensical comments as he did talking to you. After acknowledging the Republican vile and deprecating talk and criticism of Obama, he then said to you: “I refuse to accept the notion that because we focus on mediocre and mean-spirited that we can’t be critical of Barack Obama, and that’s why Ralph Nader and I say- - what?—we’re going to have a robust discussion. We want a dialogue with Obama, we want to make him stronger and at the same time bring critique to bear, because we want the same influence for poor people that lobbyists have with wealthy people when it comes to Obama. And why? Because in the end, both parties, brother Martin, are tied to oligarchic and plutocratic rule. This is a problem in our society. Both parties in that sense are too tied to big money. You see where he is now (Obama)- - raising money to the well-to-do, Goldman Sachs and others, and then telling Black people, “Oh, my God, stop crying, stop crying, I’m concerned about you- - Goldman Sachs concerned about Black people, working people, poor people, p-l-e-a-s-e….”
With respect to the first point made by West, which is a ruse. No President can prevent criticism of himself or his policies, and Obama has never said that he was or should be immune to criticism. So what was the reason for West making this comment? It would seem to be able to make himself look heroic, that he was Prometheus Unbound, “speaking truth to power;” that he would not be silenced- - when no one was trying to silence him. As I said, West tends to be overly dramatic when he presents his views.
He said that he, Nader, and others, wanted to have a dialogue with the President, which would be for the purpose of “making him stronger.” The people who would be seeking this dialogue would be socialists, and the President would not be helped or “made stronger” by having a public discourse with socialists. The President is not a socialist. He is not a progressive, or a radical, not even a liberal. He has no trouble holding liberal, moderate, or conservative ideas, and acting on all of them separately, or interactively. He said the following in Lisa Rogak’s edited book Barack Obama In His Own Words, containing excerpts from some of his speeches, and that West and his socialistic ilk obviously have not read, or have chosen not to acknowledge:
“To me, the issue is not are you centrist or are you liberal? The issue to me is, Is what you’re proposing going to work? Can you build a working coalition to make the lives of people better? And if it can work, you should support it whether it’s centrist, conservative, or liberal.” (p 15).
With this comment, Obama shows that he is not an ideologue, that he is not motivated or directed by ideological thinking, as progressives and socialists, especially, are. And he did not hide this fact from them, when he ran for the Democratic Party nomination or for President. During both campaigns, he talked about bringing people together, bipartisanship, and people solving America’s problems in a common effort. This is still his basic thinking, which is reflected in the fact that his American Jobs Bill is predicated on programs that Democrats and Republicans had agreed upon in the past. He is just more aggressive in promoting this bill and in trying to exercise bipartisan leadership.
But he was always prepared to do that, and that could have been foreseen by the likes of West or the likes of progressives, such as Adam Green, Roy Sekoff, Cenk Uygur, or Matthew Rothschild, editor of Progressive Magazine, who want him always to act like a bull in a china shop: being belligerent, drawing lines in the sand, making no compromises, rejecting bipartisanship, ignoring or rejecting the political process, or governance, and holding fast to principles, regardless, etc. These people and others like them should have read what Obama said in another excerpt from one of his speeches found in the book mentioned:
“I’m fascinated by Lyndon Johnson; there’s a piece of him in me. That kind of hunger- - desperate to win, please, succeed, dominate- - I don’t know any politician who doesn’t have some of that reptilian side to him. But that’s not the dominant part of me. On the other hand, I don’t know that it was the dominant part of Lincoln. The guy was pretty reflective.” (p. 4).
Obama was saying, “if I have to be dominant, I’ll seek to be dominant,” and that is the present mold he is in now, as he challenges the Republicans in Congress to pass his jobs bill, and as he seeks to dominate public opinion and to direct it toward the Congress to get them to do it. But being dominant is not new with Obama, although people, including yourself, Mr. Bashir, seem to think it is. He was dominant when he made the 18 biggest corporate banks undergo a three-month stress test that they did not want to undergo. He was dominant when he saved General Motors and Chrysler, and the American auto industry himself, defying Republican opposition, especially in the Senate to do so. He was dominant when he forced BP to provide a $20 billion relief fund for the Gulf area.
He was dominant when he told the Pentagon top brass to keep going back to the drawing board and give him an Afghanistan strategy he could accept. He was incredibly tough and dominant in this instance, because he was an individual without military background or experience, and yet he was telling top Pentagon brass what to do. The President held a coalition together with regard to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and then gave the Pentagon and Congress one year to end the program, which they did. He made a deal with Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts for two years, defying his party to do so, and many on the Left, who denounced his actions, and got much more than he had to give up, and to the benefit of the middle and lower class.
And it always amuses and annoys me when I hear political analysts like Howard Fineman, Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, John Heilemann, Mark Halperin, Bill Press, Joan Walsh, Cynthia Tucker, and others say that Obama is not a strong leader. Fineman once said, on the Keith Olbermann show, with the latter and Matthews who was also on the show at the time agreeing with him, that the President lacked “chops.” John Heilemann recently said on the Chris Matthews show, with Fineman agreeing, that it was not in Obama’s nature to be confrontational, that he was “conciliatory by nature.” Reducing a complex thinker and actor like Obama down to a single emotion or action response is wholly inept. These people show that they have a hard time dealing with a President of Obama’s character, and his cool, calm, and collected demeanor, and his general coordinating method of Presidential leadership, much of it behind the scene, punctuated with instances behind the scene of dominant leadership, and sometimes punctuated with public dominance, as occurred with the auto industry rescue. So where were the analysts, when Obama demonstrated his “chops” in the instances I mentioned? Were they ignorant of these things, which would say something about them as analysts? If they knew about them, and did not acknowledge them, that would also say something about them as analysts.
Only a strong President could achieve what Obama has achieved, given the horrendous opposition he has had to deal with in Congress; the way he has survived and considerably succeeded against a three-year long political mob action against him in the Congress, on the Fox channel, and on conservative radio talk shows, and their ability to bring him down. And how does one label him a weak, or non-assertive President, when he has taken away the notion that only Republicans are good on defense and at handling national security, and have given this mantle to the Democrats, which Clinton wasn’t able to do, and that he did without his own party’s help? And did the “Arab Spring” have its origins, or at least to some extent, in the speech that Obama made to the Arab world in Cairo, Egypt, early in his administration, where he called for change and democracy in that region, with some people in his assembled audience probably not liking what he was saying? And what about the way he just recently led publicly and behind the scenes in forging an American/Western Europe/Arab League coalition, which no American President has ever achieved, to bring down Moammar Gaddafi in Libya?
The third thing I wish to refer to with respect to West’s comments is the silly comment he made about intellectual critique being equal in power or value to lobbyists working for corporations and their hundreds of millions of dollars to throw at political parties and politicians. West said that he, and those sharing his thinking, wanted “the same influence for poor people that lobbyists have with wealthy people, when it comes to Barack Obama,” and critique was going to achieve this. How absurd! And equally absurd was West’s assumption that the poor would understand or even want a socialist critique presented on their behalf against the lobbyists and to the President. This kind of verbal action the 19th century Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass would have described as doing nothing more than just “rattling the air.”
West justified talking about a critique, which he thought was equal to lobbyist power, as he said to you “because in the end, both parties, brother Martin, are tied to oligarchic and plutocratic rule.” These are terms that West and others like him would use in their socialist critique, which the poor would not understand. But the very idea of thinking that a critique would be an affable substitute for an organized national political effort on the part of the poor amounts to sheer fantasy.
West said that “Both parties….are too tied to big money.” And then he abruptly went into disparaging remarks in an attempt to discredit Obama for taking money from the corporate rich. “You see where he is now- - raising money to the well-to-do, Goldman Sachs and others and then telling Black people “oh, my God, stop crying, stop crying, I’m concerned about you- - Goldman Sachs concerned about Black people, working people, poor people, p-l-e-a-s-e....”
It is true that both parties are in the grip of corporate elites and their corporations, especially the Republican Party, which has been true for decades. West criticized Obama for seeking to raise money with these elements, referring specifically to Goldman Sachs. This criticism is motivated by socialist ideology and is out of touch with reality. The corporate domination of American national politics through the use of their money is the political context that any Presidential candidate has to participate in to try to get elected; in short, has to get money from the rich sources, and if there is a failure to do that then a Presidential candidate cuts his own throat.
So the question is not taking money from the corporate elites and their institutions. The question is do they then own you, do you have to promote their agenda and give up promoting your own? West is unable to recognize, or won’t accept the fact, that the rich sources that Obama took money from did not control him. Despite the money he got from corporate elites and their corporations, he still pursued his promise of getting health care reform, and got it, with his corporate opposition spending $300 million trying to prevent it, or severely to pare it down. He got money from the corporate financial sector, and still pursued his promise to bring about corporate financial reform, which he achieved, with corporate banks spending $200 million to prevent it, or severely to pare down legislation, with Goldman Sachs contributing $1 million to the effort (who had given $1 million to Obama’s Presidential campaign in 2008).
And then there was West’s deceitful move: he tried to make it appear that Obama did not care about Blacks, the working class, and the poor, by trying to make Obama interchangeable with Goldman Sachs; saying that there was no way that Goldman Sachs could be interested in these elements, and the same was true of Obama, because he was linked to that corporation. Obama was thinking about the middle class, when he gave it the largest tax cut it had ever received in America, and by the educational reform he got passed that benefitted middle class children. He had Blacks, the working class, and the poor in mind with his health care reform. He had the middle and lower classes in mind when he made his deal with Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts for two years. Letting them expire would have imposed a $3000 tax hike on the average middle class family, and the lower class’s taxes would have risen from 10to 15 percent.
Lawrence O’Donnell asked two leading strong ideological progressives, Adam Green and Linda Hamsher, on his program Last Word, if they would be willing to let the Bush tax cuts expire knowing about the tax increases on the middle and lower classes, and both unabashedly said yes! Ed Schultz and Keith Olbermann who was on MSNBC at the time, were also willing to see this happen, as they both rigorously opposed extending the Bush tax cuts on their programs, vehemently accusing Obama on their shows, of “caving in,” or “selling out” to the Republicans, or “betraying the progressive base.” Schultz and Olbermann, as they evidenced repeatedly on their shows, were willing, as were other progressives, to see the health care reform bill go down, because it did not have a public option attached to it- - which meant that they were all, as Democrats, willing to throw millions of people under the bus, who needed that health care reform to pass; people they claimed they wanted to help. Jonathan Alter got into a heated argument with Ed Schultz on the latter’s show about his extreme position. He got into a less vociferous argument with Keith Olbermann about his extreme position on his show.
Obama took exception to this kind of rigid ideological thinking in a press conference that was called to speak about the Bush tax cut compromise, and in a press conference where he criticized those who felt that holding on to the purity of principle was more important than actually helping people. He said in that press conference “people will have the satisfaction of having a purist position, and no victories for the American people. That cannot be the measure of what it means to be a Democrat.” In short, the President was calling the purist progressives, and there are many of them, “fraudulent Democrats,” and not genuine Democrats, whose hallmark was helping people and, of course, they did not like it- - even though it was true; another instance of Obama acting dominantly as President and in a public manner. What was also true was that they were so easily susceptible to ideological paralysis that prevented critical thinking. I wrote an open letter to Keith Olbermann about his fraudulent views, which I put on my blog (December, 2010), which came after an open letter I had sent to Ed Schultz that appeared on my blog (November 2010), showing that he did not have a clue as to Obama’s political thinking and how he led as President. I referred to his deep ignorance about what the President had achieved in office, against horrendous opposition. I said the same thing to Keith Olbermann in the letter I wrote to him, where I also referenced Howard Fineman’s ignorance, who was a frequent guest on the Olbermann show, with the two of them nurturing each other’s ignorance about the President.
For instance, Fineman, and other political analysts, such as Chris Matthews, John Heilemann, Mark Halperin, Bob Herbert, Clarence Page, and numerous progressives, notably Arianna Huffington and Katrina vanden Heuvel, and many socialists complain about the President making a concession to the Republicans before he begins negotiations with them, which is proof to them that he is not a strong leader that he “capitulates.” Making pre-concessions is not what the President wants to do. He knows from his own experience with negotiating in the Illinois state legislature and in the U.S. Senate, that each side in a negotiation comes with their ultimate demands as a starting point. But the President has found this difficult to do, because of the subtle, but intense racist context in which American national politics occur. The corporate involvement in American politics occurs within this context as well, like so much else of great significance in this country.
The base of the Republican Party is the White people in the states of the former Southern Confederacy. This is where racism is still the strongest in the country, primarily expressed in a subtle manner. These southern Whites had originally been in the Democratic Party, and had made it a very racist party in that region. They left that party in large numbers between the mid-1960s and the 1980s, and switched over to the Republican Party, taking not only their racism with them, but the political “dirty tricks,” that southern Whites had perpetrated against Blacks to diminish their political rights and their political power in the South, and that they are still trying to exercise in the region as Republicans.
Southern White racists lodged within the Republican Party tried to bring about Obama’s defeat in the Presidential election of 2008, but had not been able to do so. They then turned to Republicans in Congress to help them against Obama. And one of their kind, Senator Mitch McConnell, from Kentucky, obliged them, saying publicly to them, and to the rest of America, that the number ONE priority of the Republican Party in Congress would be to make Obama fail as President - - someone who entered the White House wanting Democrats and Republicans to cooperate with each other in Washington. But the Republican Party, prompted by its racist base, made the determination to try to make Obama fail as President- - to make a Black President fail!- -to get him and his Black family, out of the White House, which symbolized to them that they had “lost their country” and had “to get it back.” The Republicans in Congress decided to oppose everything the President said or proposed of consequence to do in office, to conduct a political lynching of him. They were going to be a party, not of “loyal opposition,” but of “royal obstruction and destruction.”
The corporate elites and their institutions wanted Obama to fail as well, as they wanted to prevent him from achieving educational reform, health care reform, and corporate financial reform. They knew what the racist reasons were that Republicans had for making the President fail. They dove-tailed with their own reasons for wanting him to fail. The corporate elites and their institutions saw where they could kill two birds with one stone by financially supporting the Republicans in Congress and their racist objectives, who were their primary allies in Congress, who would help them stop Obama, and his objectives with respect to them.
This coming together of Republican racism in Congress and corporate elite and corporate financial institutions also occurred with respect to the matter of government spending on social programs. Since the late 1960s, southern White racists have been trying to diminish the New Deal orientation of the national government, so that the national government does not function as an activist government and cannot spend big money to provide social programs to Blacks in the country, especially in the South. Corporate elites and their institutions have financed Republicans, knowing of this racist agenda, which dove-tailed with their effort to have the national government spend less on social programs, to enable it to shift public money to the rich and their corporations, as well as certain social programs that they would privatize on the corporate market. The 2010 mid-term elections brought more racist Republicans into the Congress, who entered it with the determination to help the Republicans already there to try to make Obama fail as President- -to make a Black man fail as President!- - even if it meant damaging American credit, or taking down the American economy, or pushing the country back into a deep recession.
In a context where the racist objectives of Republicans and the financial objectives of the big corporate banks, and big insurance corporations come together to try to get Obama out of the White House- - which amounts to a mob action against an individual - - the President had to figure out how he could get a dialogue going with Republicans to deal with matters that he wanted to see addressed as President. He had to govern, had to maintain a public image of being reasonable, had to get something done, and there were always thoughts in the back of his mind about re-election- - that the Republicans and the corporate elements were trying to prevent. To deal with this situation forced on him, his tactic has been to offer a compromise at the outset of talks or negotiations, because that is the bait to draw Republicans into a discussion with him. His problem is not to make too big a compromise or concession. The progressives and socialists always show their displeasure at this, without any understanding of what’s happening; what the Realpolitik is for Obama as President; how he can’t avoid functioning, as President in this interlocking racist/corporate elites/corporation context. Thus, when Obama agreed to compromise at the outset on the Bush tax cuts toward the end of 2010, progressives and socialists were livid, but this method enabled him to get more out of the deal and for the American people than the corporate elites and their institutions got, and what amounted to a second stimulus for the economy that kept it from going back into the deep tank.
The following is another instance of the President’s tactic of necessity. He asked the Congress to raise the debt ceiling, which the Republicans in the House especially refused to do, unless there were sizeable cuts in social programs. The Tea Party contingent among them were willing to have the U.S. credit rating go down and even have the economy slip back into a deep recession, perhaps even into a depression. They put the country in a risky situation, and the President had to give serious thought to that risk.
This was similar to the dilemma that Franklin D. Roosevelt had to face during the Depression. There were Blacks who wanted him to get Congress to pass an anti-lynching bill. Walter White, the Executive Secretary of the NAACP, went to Washington to plead with the President to push for the bill, which he refused to do, explaining why to White, as the latter recorded in his autobiography A Man Called White : “I did not choose the tools with which I must work,” he told me. “Had I been permitted to choose them I would have selected different ones. But I’ve got to get legislation passed by Congress to save America. The Southerners by reason of the seniority rule in Congress are chairmen or occupy strategic places on most of the Senate and House committees. If I came out for the anti-lynching bill now, they will block every bill I ask Congress to pass to keep America from collapsing. I just can’t take that risk.” (pp.169-170).
In this instance, Roosevelt made a pre-concession to southern White racist Democrats, not to seek an anti-lynching bill, as a means to open up a dialogue with them to be able to negotiate the passage of certain legislation. Roosevelt had no doubt that these racist Dixiecrats would bring about the collapse of the country. They were the descendants of the southern Whites who were willing to destroy the United States if they could not extend Black chattel slavery westward. Recently, it was southern Whites in the Senate who strongly opposed President Obama’s efforts to give government loans to save General Motors and Chrysler, and the American auto industry, and a large part of the Midwestern economy, to prevent him from having a success. In short, they were ready to throw people, their jobs, their personal wealth, and an important part of the Midwestern economy under the bus- - while they lived in states that were subsidizing foreign automakers.
Obama had this recent example before him, as he tangled with the Republican Party and its extremist Tea Party elements about raising the debt ceiling and making deep cuts in government programs. They threatened the faith and credit of the U.S. and the American economy, putting Obama in a box. He offered deep cuts to John Boehner, which opened up a dialogue and negotiations with him, and then the President jarred Boehner by insisting that $4 trillion be cut from the national debt- - more than what Boehner had wanted- - and that it be made possible by a combination of program cuts and tax revenue. Boehner was actually amenable to the idea, but Eric Cantor and the Tea Party elements were not, and then threatened the U.S. with economic disaster, which was a risk the President was not willing to take. There were some Democrats who wanted the President to use the clause in the 14th Amendment that said American debts had to be honored and raise the debt ceiling by himself. This would have put the President and country in unchartered waters. And the President could easily conclude that the Republicans in the House would draw up impeachment articles against him, even if these went nowhere. But the action would further impede the functioning of government and who knew for how long. The President ceded to the Republicans accepting a deal of program cuts, and no revenue, but getting an agreement to establish the Joint Deficit Reduction Committee to deal with revenue, cuts, and the debt problem against which he could take veto action if displeased with the Committee’s recommendations.
But the President had no intention of waiting for the super committee to act, especially on revenues. After the debt ceiling debacle, he immediately made taxing the rich a political issue, and then proceeded to draw up a job’s bill, that included tax revenues, and took the tax-jobs bill to the American people, which he is still doing at the present time, choosing at this moment to act publicly in a dominant manner. The Republicans thought they had him down. He had outmaneuvered them and put them on the defensive. And their recalcitrance helped to send people into the streets against Republicans, mainly, and Wall Street. What Republicans have learned about Obama over the past three years, which progressives, socialists, political pundits, and media political analysts have not yet learned, is that he is relentless. When he sets his mind to achieve something, he keeps pursuing his goal until he succeeds: as witness how he pursued delegates to defeat Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic nomination. Or his relentless pursuit of an economic stimulus, health care reform, and financial reform, which included a simultaneous relentless pursuit of some Republicans to vote for these measures that he found he could not pass without their help. He stayed with his belief in the interest to promote bipartisanship, and it paid off for him and the country, even if it were just enough bipartisanship to gain the requisite votes. He is presently showing his relentless pursuit of an objective in promoting his jobs bill.
Cornel West, Tavis Smiley, and a whole lot of political analysts, the likes of those I have mentioned and I would also include Mike Barnicle, Frank Rich, David Brooks, and Joe Klein, who do not have much understanding of the entirety of the political reality the President has to deal with, and who always want to make him into something he is not as an individual, or as President, and to judge him and even severely criticize him on the basis of these abstract, un-related constructions. And one often hears references made to Bill Clinton, suggesting how he would handle strong political opposition and the American economy in recession, differently and more effectively.
This kind of argument is a staple with many White progressives, who have indicated that they wished Hillary Clinton were President, who they feel would be tougher in office than Obama. The progressives still remain in considerable ignorance about Clinton’s years in the White House, including the way he dealt with the strong southern based opposition he faced in Congress after the 1994 mid-term election, which was done by getting in bed with them politically. Al Sharpton criticized progressives on his show, and Melissa Harris-Perry did so in an issue of The Nation, for having a double standard of criticizing Obama, while not being critical of Bill Clinton, for instance for signing racist legislation into law, and being considerably reactionary in the White House. In his new book After Schock , Robert Reich said that America “risk(ed) upheaval and reactionary politics,” (p.4) if it did not find ways to put more money into the hands of the middle class, which is a critical component for sustained economic growth and the creation of jobs.
Reich was unable to see that this country has been in reactionary politics since the late 1960s, which Reagan and Republicans, and the corporate elite and their institutions, nailed down, and which has been perpetrated with great success since the 1980s. At the recent progressive “Bring Back the American Dream Movement Conference,” Reich said to the audience that he would like to see the Glass/Steagall Bill restored, that Clinton and the Congress officially ended by replacing it with the Gramm/Leach/Biley Act in 1999 that took government restraints off corporate bankers and that was calculated to promote the growth of the size of corporate financial institutions, a greater centralization of corporate capital, and greater centralization of corporate organization in America. In short, the greater wealth and power of big corporations. Economist and political analyst Kevin Phillips wrote in Bad Money that “the 1995-2000 period saw a stunning total of 11,000 bank mergers, and the crescendo peaked the next year following the repeal (of Glass/Steagall). Some five hundred new FHCs (financial holding companies) were also created.” (pp. xix-xx).
In short, Bill Clinton facilitated the reckless financial behavior on Wall Street. He also did that by encouraging Americans to go into debt and to buy stock, and by signing the Financial Mobilization Act into law, that severely crippled existing regulatory agencies. He also signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act into law that forbade the Commodity Futures Trade Commission from regulating derivatives at the national and state level, which the CFTC had wanted to do; and, thus, to regulate the “shadow bank.” The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission of 2011 concluded that this latter piece of legislation “was a key turning point in the march toward the financial crisis.” (Lawrence Lessing, Republic,Lost , p.76). Bill Clinton has escaped criticism for his role in helping to bring about the financial crisis and recession in this country in 2008, to which he, Ronald Reagan, and George Herbert Walker Bush before him, and George Walker Bush after him, made notable contributions.
The Black novelist and political essayist James Baldwin said in his explosive book of 1963, The Fire Next Time: “We are controlled here by our confusion, far more than we know.” (p.89). And this is understandable. When a people seek to build a free country on the basis of racism and slavery and do so for 230 years, and then after this period is over, plunges into a second phase of slavery and racism, commencing around the 1870s and lasting until the 1930s and 1940s, it produces a fetid, debilitating intellectual legacy that makes it very difficult for Americans not only to understand their own country, but to be able to speak about it intelligently, critically, and honestly. Case in point: How can Mitt Romney who is said to have created thousands of jobs as a businessman over a period of years, and only 48,000 non-government jobs as governor of Massachusetts over a period of four years, be considered a better job creator than President Obama, who according to Congressional Budget Office has created nearly three million jobs? Or how Rick Perry can be ranked above Obama as job creator who, by his own words, created a million jobs in Texas? Yet, every day, one can see and hear political pundits and media political analysts talking about Obama being at a disadvantage having to face job creators like Romney and Perry. Why are they not at a disadvantage running against the President on this matter who has shown himself to be a better job creator than the two of them together?
I will be tuning into your next show, Mr. Bashir, which I find to be a significant one in American broadcast.

Sincerely Yours,
Dr. D.W. Wright